Your capabilities
- You have a master's degree in a major in bioengineering or sciences. (Final year students can also apply). or equivalent.
- If you hold a foreign degree, we ask you to obtain an equivalency recognition upon commencement of employment. You can then apply for this at NARIC Flanders.
- You are familiar with bioinformatics and high-throughput sequencing.
- You have knowledge of molecular biology and genomics techniques
- You have knowledge of plant pathogens and interactions
- You are willing to prepare and submit a dossier for additional research funding (FWO), for this you must meet the following generic conditions:
o At the start of the fellowship, you must hold a degree that is at least equivalent to a master's degree that follows a bachelor's degree and was awarded by the competent institutions of one of the countries of the EEA or Switzerland*.
o You can have your degree certificate, issued outside the EEA and Switzerland, declared equivalent to a Flemish master's degree by NARIC. This also applies to degrees issued in the United Kingdom.
o You must have obtained your Master's degree or equivalent at the earliest three years before the call deadline (March 1, 2026).
o You must have a maximum of 18 months of academic seniority by the call deadline (March 1, 2026).
o You can postulate a maximum of two times for a prospective mandate.
o You have not yet enjoyed this mandate, even partially.
Personal competences
- You work in an organized and accurate manner.
- You are a good communicator and sociable.
- You can work independently and have a strong sense of responsibility.
Plus points
- You have experience with plant pathogens (in a wet lab).
- You have (basic) experience with Linux, R and/or Python
- You have experience with writing and presenting reports and scientific publications
- You are in possession of a drivers license B
We offer
We offer you a 4 year PhD position funded by ILVO and in close cooperation with a University.
- The doctoral scholarship is initially granted for 1 year and can be extended to 4 years, after a favorable evaluation. The scholarship is free of personal income tax, but does contribute to your social security (e.g. pension).
- The grant amount is 2,793.55 net (3,238,71 gross) for the first 2 years. For the final 2 years the amount is 2.895,05 net (3.356,97 bruto). These amounts may differ from the scholarship amounts at the Universities.
You get a varied, challenging and socially relevant job in a dynamic environment with attractive working conditions and development opportunities. Hybrid work is possible if the position allows it.
Additional: Hospitalization insurance, commuting allowance (bicycle – public
transport), meal vouchers (8 €/day). An additional week of holidays are given between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
We are recruiting a PhD student who will conduct research on the genes encoding avirulence effectors in the rust fungus Puccinia horiana, the main pathogen in chrysanthemum. We are looking for an individual willing to use his/her talents around both bioassays and genomics to detect and characterize these effectors in this fascinating pathosystem. The research will take place at ILVO (Plant Unit).
Chrysanthemum is one of the most important ornamental crops worldwide, with very diverse varieties in terms of color, flower and plant shape. Puccinia horiana causes “white rust” or “Japanese rust” in a lot of these chrysanthemum cultivars. However, good disease resistance is present in the chrysanthemum gene pool and is being used by more and more breeders. When screening for resistance, one should pay attention to the various pathotypes of P. horiana, which differ in the combination of at least seven specific avirulence (Avr) effector genes in their genome. We have considerable knowledge about the pathotypes present and a collection of diverse isolates and reliable bioassays. Within this doctoral research we wish to zoom in on the effective Avr effector genes via fungal culture, whole genome sequencing and comparative genomics techniques, which we then characterize. This will allow for more targeted and rapid characterization of isolates, ultimately contributing to improved resistance screening.
